NOTTINGHAM OPEN POETRY COMPETITION 2009

PRIZES: 1st: £300 2nd: £150 3rd: £75
and Merit Prizes of One Year’s subscription to
POETRY NOTTINGHAM

Adjudicator: Penelope Shuttle

Closing Date: 7th September 2009

1. The competition is open to anyone aged 16 or over.

2. Poems should be in English, unpublished, not accepted or submitted for publication elsewhere, and must be your original work.

3. Poems should not be entered in any other competition, or have previously been a prizewinner in any other competition.

4. Poems should be no longer than 40 lines.

5. Each poem should be typed on a separate sheet of A4 paper, and must not bear your name or any other form of identification. On a separate sheet of paper list your name, address, titles of poems submitted, and where you heard about this competition. No application form necessary.

6. Entry fee: £3.00 per poem or £10.00 for 4 poems.

7. Any number of poems can be submitted on payment of the appropriate fee. Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to Nottingham Poetry Society. No stamps, foreign currency or Irish P.O’s accepted

8.Winners will be notified by post in October 2009

9. Prizes will be presented at a public adjudication in Nottingham on 28th November 2009. All prizewinning poems will be published in Poetry Nottingham and a selection on this website. The decision of the adjudicator is final.

10. Entries should be addressed to: The Competition Secretary, 38 Harrow Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 7DU

To request further details, please contact us .

 

NOTTINGHAM POETRY SOCIETY OPEN POETRY COMPETITION 2008 RESULTS

Julia Copus – Adjudicator

1st: Caroline Price: Pothole

2nd: C.J.Allen: My favourite rooms in the gallery are these

3rd: Kate Rhodes: Spectacles

Merit Prizes were awarded to: Carol Beadle, Carol DeVaughn, Charles Evans, Jennifer Farley, Norbert Hirschhorn, Andrew Kelly, Sarah Leavesley and Anna Wigley

Commended were: Les Baynton, Kathleen Bell, Joan Condon, Barbara Daniels, Julia Deakin, Sheila Roe,     Patricia Tyrrell, Huw Watkins, Louise Wilford and Margaret Wilmot

 PRIZE WINNING POEMS FROM 2008 OPEN COMPETITION:

POTHOLE

It was a present to each other,

driving into the hills to meet

as if by chance, disguised already

as underworld creatures.

Their passion expressed

in this, the heartstopping moment

of going in, dropping three hundred feet

on ropes of water, the darkness

welcoming, the maze of streamways

open like arms.

 

The river which plumbs the cave is fast

and silent: all they can hear

is their own blood, pulsing.

Fish that live in lightless water

are blinder, they know, than love -

and their fingers touch

as they wade, their lamps’ soft eyes

turn the walls to velvet, textured

like the inside of a mouth.

How far can they be swallowed?

They crouch and crawl, squeeze through

the narrowest clefts

on a held breath, folding into smaller

and smaller versions of themselves.

 

Outside it is the tail end

of Christmas; their bright houses flicker

as rain begins again, saturating

already bursting ground.

The beck which enters the open shaft

swells to a torrent, waterfalls

merge into one. Each cave

fills like a fishbowl. deeper inside,

still holding hands, tuned

to each other – they are inseparable

now, and for some time at least

no-one will find them.

 

                                                  Caroline Price

 

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My favourite rooms in the gallery are these

unpeopled halls of humdrum local scenes.

The town before anyone knew to call it a town,

an irregular geometry of fields

 

with harrows and stiff horses, indeterminate peasants

sowing or reaping or standing around. A castle,

colossal in the middle distance, flags

 

and pennants ablaze, the perspective shot, an impossibly

angled moat somehow not spilling over.

A prospect of surrounding country, coils

 

of river-water, pools and cisters, copses,

canals, a whisper of smoke on the horizon,

commerce flexing and stretching. Civic buildings

 

receiving royalty, the local militia

glinting with pride, lead-white standing in

for splashes of daylight on their helmets and halberds.

 

Heroes of home and hearth, the faithful terrier

who roused the drowsing guard, the flying ace

who never made it to twenty-three, his medals

 

oxidising in a mahogany case.

Sweethearts under a tree, she with a parasol,

coyly counting petals, he in a frock-coat,

 

all buttons and tails, admiring his cavalryman’s boots,

while something forever unspoken passes between them,

vague as the unseen spiral of air that lifts

 

symbolic blossom then gently lets it fall.

A beach assailed by breakers, grey-faced women

in grey headscarves. A Waterfall from days

 

of the sublime. The echo of my footsteps

in conditioned air, the world beyond postponed,

its unbalanced clamour and outrage of colour exchanged

 

for ‘Storm Clouds over Willoughby House’, ‘Still Life

with Silver Pitcher’, ‘Colts Racing on the Downs’,

as I lean in to inspect more carefully

 

a filament of sable trapped in varnish,

the magnolia complexion of a saint,

a bucket in a puddle of Dutch sun.

 

                                                       C.J.Allen

 

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SPECTACLES

 

For Salvino d’Armato, d. 1317

 

They made the world more promising,

drew trees nearer to the ground,

established their leaves

not as a single frizz of green

but alive with shadow and movement,

a harpist’s fingers playing the breeze.

 

Walking through the market

you saw for the first time in twenty years

steam rising from the horses’ backs,

pit marks in the skin of apples,

cupids hiding in ironwork gates,

young girls’ faces, not blushing but rouged.

 

You ignored the stallholders’ jeers.

Suddenly owlish, unsteady on your feet,

you jumped across mile-wide puddles

to wait for your wife by the front door,

afraid to meet the woman

you had known only as a blur.

 

                                                         Kate Rhodes

 

The Contributors 2008

 

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